Quotes from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“An ugliness unfurled in the moonlight and soft shadow and suffused the whole world. If I were an amoeba, he thought, with an infinitesimal body, I could defeat ugliness. A man isn’t tiny or giant enough to defeat anything.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“...living is merely the chaos of existence...”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“Real danger is nothing more than just living. Of course, living is merely the chaos of existence, but more than that it's a crazy mixed-up business of dismantling existence instant by instant to the point where the original chaos is restored, and taking strength from the uncertainty and the fear that chaos brings to re-create existence instant by instant. You won't find another job as dangerous as that. There isn't any fear in existence itself, or any uncertainty, but living creates it.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“There's a huge seal called 'impossibility' pasted all over this world. And don't ever forget that we're the only ones who can tear it off once and for all.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“There isn't any fear in existence itself, or any uncertainty, but living creates it.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“Still immersed in his dream, he drank down the tepid tea. It tasted bitter. Glory, as anyone knows, is bitter stuff.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“A man isn't tiny or giant enough to defeat anything”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“Possibly a man who hates the land should dwell on shore forever. Alienation and the long voyages at sea will compel him once again to dream of it, torment him with the absurdity of longing for something that he loathes.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“Suddenly the full long wail of a ship's horn surged through the open window and flooded the dim room - a cry of boundless, dark, demanding grief; pitch-black and glabrous as a whale's back and burdened with all the passions of the tides, the memory of voyages beyond counting, the joys, the humiliations: the sea was screaming. Full of the glitter and the frenzy of night, the horn thundered in, conveying from the distant offing, from the dead center of the sea, a thirst for the dark nectar in the little room.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“حتى وإن أبحرت سنوات عديدة، لن تعتاد يوماً على العواصف، وفي كل مرة تتساءل إن كنت ستودع الحياة".”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“A father is a reality-concealing machine, a machine for dishing up lies to kids, and that isn't even the worst of it: secretly he believes that he represents reality.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“قرر أنّ يراقب بعناية كيف يمكن لشخص قريب إلى هذا الحد أنّ يقدر برمشة عين أن ينسحب إلى مسافةٍ لا يمكن بلوغها”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“..and certain that life consisted of a few simple signals and decisions; that death took root at the moment of birth and man’s only recourse thereafter was to water and tend it; that propagation was a fiction; consequently, society was a fiction too; that fathers and teachers, by virtue of being fathers and teachers, were guilty of a grievous sin.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“The parting, like the white fruit of an apple discolouring instantly around the bite, had begun three days before when they had met aboard the Rakuyo.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“All six of us are geniuses. And the world, as you know, is empty.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“It was the sea that made me begin thinking secretly about love more than anything else; you know, a love worth dying for, or a love that consumes you. To a man locked up in a steel ship all the time, the sea is too much like a woman. Things like her lulls and storms, or her caprice, or the beauty of her breast reflecting the setting sun, are all obvious. More than that, you’re in a ship that mounts the sea and rides her and yet is constantly denied her. It’s the old saw about miles and miles of lovely water and you can’t quench your thirst. Nature surrounds a sailor with all these elements so like a woman and yet he is kept as far as a man can be from her warm, living body. That’s where the problem begins, right there—I’m sure of it.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“And it seemed increasingly obvious that the world would have to topple if he was to attain the glory that was rightfully his. They were consubstantial: glory and the capsized world.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“They had laid the tender, down-ruffled little bird on a platter and appeared now to be pondering a way to eat out its heart without causing it distress.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“At thirteen, Noboru was convinced of his own genius (each of the others in the gang felt the same way) and certain that life consisted of a few simple signals and decisions; that death took root at the moment of birth and man's only recourse thereafter was to water and tend it; that propagation was a fiction; consequently, society was a fiction too: that fathers and teachers, by virtue of being fathers and teachers, were guilty of a grievous sin. Therefore, his own father's death, when he was eight, had been a happy incident, something to be proud of.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“This time, Fusako was able to express herself with fluency and candor. The bold letters she had been writing week after week had granted her an unexpected new freedom.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“The whole house is spic and span and everybody's supposed to be real honest and full of what he calls 'the good'. We even leave food out for the mice in the rafters so they won't have to sin by stealing. And you know what happens when dinner's over? Everybody hunches over and licks his place clean so none of God's grace will be wasted.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“Glory, as anyone knows, is bitter stuff.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“He found himself in the strange predicament all sailors share: essentially he belonged neither to the land nor to the sea. Possibly a man who hates the land should dwell on shore forever. Alienation and the long voyages at sea will compel him once again to dream of it, torment him with the absurdity of longing for something that he loathes.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“Her nose was perfect; her lips exquisite. Like a master placing a go stone on the board after long deliberation, he placed the details of her beauty one by one in the misty dark and drew back to savour them.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“The only people in this world I really trust are my fans - even if they do forget you so fast.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“He wanted to talk about the strange passion that catches hold of a man by the scruff of his neck and transports him to a realm beyond the fear of death.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“Bu dunyanin uzerine boydan boya yapistirilmis bir "olaniksizlik"etiketi vardir. Ve bu etiketi yirtip atabileceklerin sadece biz oldugunu aklindan cikarma.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“Anlasilan tehlikenin ne demek oldugunu bile bilmiyorlar.Tehlike deyince,gazetelerin abartarak yazdigi fiziksel anlamdaki yaralanma, biraz kan akmasi gibi seyleri getiriyorlar akillarina. Bunun tehlikeyle hic ilgisi yok. Gercek tehlike yasama eyleminin ta kendisidir. Hic kuskusuz yasamak,varolusun farklilastigi bir kargasadir. Fakat varolusu her an aslinda oldugu duzensiz haline cozumleyip ortaya cikan endiseden hareketle, her an ilk kargasayi yeniden yaratmaya calisan kacik bir eylemdir yasamak. Bu denli tehlikeli baska bir is daha olamaz. Varolusun kendinde hicbir korku ya da hicbir ortulu yan yoktur, bu korku ve tedirginligi yaratanyasamak eylemidir. Ve toplum,kokende anlamsizdir,kadin erkek bir arada yikanilan Roma hamamlari gibidir. Okul da toplumun minyaturudur. Bu yuzden bize boyuna buyruk veriyorlar.Bir avuc kor adam, bize ne yapmamiz gerektigini soyluyor,sinirsiz yeteneklerimizi paramparca ediyor.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“Cay buruktu. Bilirsiniz, buruk olur tadi yuceligin.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“Noboru tried to compare the corpse confronting the world so nakedly with what might have seemed the unsurpassably naked figures of his mother and the sailor; by comparison, they weren't naked enough. They were still swaddled in skin. Even that marvellous hom and the great wide world whose expanse it had limned couldn't possibly have penetrated as deeply as this ... the pumping of the bared heart placed the peeled kitten in direct and tingling contact with the kernel of the world.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

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Popular quotes

“Ignorance has never been the problem. The problem was and continues to be unexamined confidence in western civilization and the unwarranted certainty of Christianity. And arrogance. Perhaps it is unfair to judge the past by the present, but it is also necessary.

If nothing else, an examination of the past—and of the present, for that matter—can be instructive. It shows us that there is little shelter and little gain for Native peoples in doing nothing. So long as we possess one element of sovereignty, so long as we possess one parcel of land, North America will come for us, and the question we have to face is how badly we wish to continue to pursue the concepts of sovereignty and self-determination. How important is it for us to maintain protected communal homelands? Are our traditions and languages worth the cost of carrying on the fight? Certainly the easier and more expedient option is simply to step away from who we are and who we wish to be, sell what we have for cash, and sink into the stewpot of North America.

With the rest of the bones.

No matter how you frame Native history, the one inescapable constant is that Native people in North America have lost much. We’ve given away a great deal, we’ve had a great deal taken from us, and, if we are not careful, we will continue to lose parts of ourselves—as Indians, as Cree, as Blackfoot, as Navajo, as Inuit—with each generation. But this need not happen. Native cultures aren’t static. They’re dynamic, adaptive, and flexible, and for many of us, the modern variations of older tribal traditions continue to provide order, satisfaction, identity, and value in our lives. More than that, in the five hundred years of European occupation, Native cultures have already proven themselves to be remarkably tenacious and resilient.

Okay.

That was heroic and uncomfortably inspirational, wasn’t it? Poignant, even. You can almost hear the trumpets and the violins. And that kind of romance is not what we need. It serves no one, and the cost to maintain it is too high.

So, let’s agree that Indians are not special. We’re not … mystical. I’m fine with that. Yes, a great many Native people have a long-standing relationship with the natural world. But that relationship is equally available to non-Natives, should they choose to embrace it. The fact of Native existence is that we live modern lives informed by traditional values and contemporary realities and that we wish to live those lives on our terms.”
― Thomas King, quote from The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America

“Fire shot through my body at his touch. The scent of his skin caused my brain to short circuit. I knew I was only feeling that way because I'd been missing Kyle. This was the longest we'd been apart. Nearly a week and we'd been so busy we hadn't had a chance to really talk. That's what this was-I missed Kyle. I needed to remind myself not to mistake the pull I felt toward Tristan as anything other than my yearning for Kyle.”
― Adriane Leigh, quote from The Mourning After

“Love is a goddamn scary thing. Facing it takes brass balls, and we all know you have a pair.”
― Jay Crownover, quote from Rome

“I don’t love or hate humans. I respect them. They shape themselves, in a way that we angels do not. They tell lies and sleep around and curse, and they try to define themselves so valiantly. Who am I? they keep asking. Why am I here?”
― Cynthia Hand, quote from Radiant

“The point of all this is not so that the copper in question can learn more about your motivations and beliefs. They lack such psychoanalytic curiosity. That's why they're traffic policemen. By making you answer a question to which they already know the answer, they are asserting their authority, and belittling yours. That's also why they're traffic policemen.”
― Mark Forsyth, quote from The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase

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